


Magnum Opus

by Colms



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-13
Updated: 2015-03-13
Packaged: 2018-03-17 14:52:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3533525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Colms/pseuds/Colms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was his magnum opus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Magnum Opus

**Author's Note:**

> Who knew that this would be the hill I would die on. Tremendously self-indulgent, I am so sorry. The Hawke/Varric is subtle, but you don't have to squint an awful lot to see it.

She was his magnum opus.

He was the master and she, the masterpiece. His pen carved away the layers, chipped away to create or to smooth edges. It required some skill and precision, but the image was there, the story humming in the marble, whispering on sheets of blank paper.

“Is that really me?” She’d laugh. “Maker, I sound so heroic. Point it out to me next time so I can either bask in my awesomeness or stop myself before I start sounding downright _responsible_.”

He shook his head with a smile and kept writing.

She didn’t see herself as heroic, but his vision was the keen, objective eye of the storyteller. That’s what he told himself at first, anyway, and maybe that’s how it began. But stories must progress, and sometimes, the narrator is unreliable. Exposition ends. Characters develop.

Heroes face trials and are forced to make tough choices.

_“If there’s even a chance to save Carver, we must take it.”_

They face opposition.

_“She stole the tome of Koslun. She must return with us.”_

_“Over my dead body. You have your relic. She stays.”_

And the best of them break.

_“My little girl has become so strong…”_

That time, there was no reply. Just silence that filled still air, and a chill that flames could not scorch away.

Strengths and weaknesses, failures and victories, he scribed them all. With a little embellishment, maybe, but always in good taste.

“I wonder what your readers would say if they knew the Champion of Kirkwall is far less impressive in reality.”

“That’s not possible, Hawke. I don’t make mistakes.” She chuckled and kissed the top of his head before departing, her fingers brushing his shoulder even as she turned away. Maybe it was another lie, but it was more complicated than that. It wasn’t false; she just couldn’t see the finer details like he could. She didn’t have the same perspective.

She looked down and saw a shattered city sprawled in front of her, fragmented, and she didn’t see a lost cause. She saw her home, and tried to put pieces together that just weren’t the same shape anymore. She looked behind and saw the fires in her wake, but he knew that even in a forest consumed, new life sprouts amid the charred remains. She saw the actions of a woman forced, mistakes and burdens piled on throughout the years, scars on her skin and scorch marks on her soul.

He looked up at her and got the sun in his eyes.

_The Tale of the Champion_. Stories were meant to have some element of truth amid the fantastic, and while he didn’t write for someone in particular, a part of him knew that he’d written it at least somewhat for her.

_—the lightning started as a spark in her eyes, and travelled down her spine, into her fingertips. She moved with sinuous grace, as natural as breathing, and a laugh danced off her lips—_

She loved his stories. _“Tell me another,”_ she’d say, leaning forward eagerly. She’d hang on every word, and he knew it pained her not to interrupt, but she held her tongue even when the protagonist was facing certain death and he kept her waiting, distracted by some inane fact or other. She loved that he wrote about her, too, fascinated with his portrayal even though she saw so little of herself in the woman on the pages. He begged to differ.

It was his best work, his pride and joy. She was his muse and his magnum opus—oh, yeah, and _The Tale of the Champion_ was pretty good, too.


End file.
